Creation

         Victor’s entire body jerked, and when he opened his fluttering eyes, he discovered that he was teetering on the edge of his mattress. He rolled onto his back and turned his head, staring quizzically at the figures on the shelves across the room. A variety of creatures looked back at him. He threw back the comforter, stretched, and tumbled to the floor with a thump. Fully awake now, he stood and lumbered over to the shelves while running his fingers through his disheveled, raven locks.

         “Walter must have been messing with my models again,” Victor mumbled to himself. Each one had to be spaced evenly apart from the one next to it or the shelf would be unbalanced, and the sight before him needed some adjustments. At least they were in the proper order. He began to slide the sculptures the correct distance away from one another and he observed that his skills sculpting them had gotten more sophisticated throughout the years. They were proof of his ability to focus, not to mention his creativity.

         The one he made when he was only seven was first in line. It was an alien head made out of green Play Doh, although, it looked more like a green lightbulb with eyes. Originally the eyes were watermelon seeds, but they fell off a long time ago, and Walter had colored the indentations from them with a black marker. Over time the model had dried and cracked but Victor still displayed it atop a candle stick. Next to it was the red gorilla. Using water, cornstarch, and baking soda, he made air-dried clay. A stony, egg-shaped lump attached to a solid, oblong body with toothpicks. The three bamboo sticks poked out of the crown of its head like tufts of hair. It was balanced on two stumpy legs and two long arms. To the right of the gorilla was a black and white cat, Victor’s first attempt at papier-mâché.

         As he migrated from one creation to the other, he began to toy with the idea of making a model with items from the forest behind his house. He sighed heavily, he wasn’t really satisfied with the exhibit on the shelves yet, but he knew that if he spent any more of his time on rearranging his artwork, it would only delay putting together his new creation. He took care of business in the bathroom, dressed, and joined Yovanna and Walter in the kitchen.

         Walter was sitting at the table laughing, using his tongue to keep the chewed Fruit Loops from falling out of his mouth. When he heard Victor approach, he turned and looked at his big brother. The colorful cereal was a tie-dyed glop in his open maw and Victor suggested that he swallow. After a gulp, Walter laughingly said, “Yovanna poured orange juice on her cereal.”

         Victor immediately put a damper on his little brother’s joviality with his ill-timed retort, “Please don’t mess with my stuff.” After grabbing a bowl from the cupboard and a box of Frosted Rice Squares from the pantry, he plopped into the spindle back chair by the table.

         Their sister, Yovanna, stood by the open refrigerator. She was twenty-six. She moved into their parents’ house and wholeheartedly took responsibility for the boys after the couple died in a car accident three years earlier. Yovanna’s own birth mother passed away when she was only five, and as the years past, she began secretly yearning for another female mentor. When her father decided to get married again, her wish seemed fulfilled. Then the boys were born, and she decided that motherhood would be part of her future. She did not, however, think it would happen like this, but life is full of twists.

         Always the mediator, she tried to break the tension circling the table by asking Victor if he slept well. He divulged the dream that startled him awake that morning and a conversation ensued with each sibling disclosing his or her dreams. Laughter flowed among the family once again.

        Later that day, Victor trudged through the thickets that surrounded the house in search of materials for his latest project. The rotund tree trunks divided into solid, gnarled branches, each branch sprouting twigs like taut, winding rope. Networks of brittle stems weaved and twisted in the underbrush. Shriveled, brown and gold leaves crunched beneath his feet, triggering his thoughts of making a scarecrow.

         Just ahead, he could see two leafless trees reaching toward one another. They created the illusion of a withered grape vine arbor that led to a dormant garden. He hastened his stride, then paused at the eerie threshold. On the other side of the archway, a path, like a dried riverbed, meandered through rows of leafless trees. Peculiar golden globes, smooth and perfectly round, dangled from their solid branches. He looked behind him, more out of reflex than to check if he was being followed, and he crossed into the intriguing land.

          He studied his surroundings, veering off the path to investigate a wayward stem protruding from a scrawny-looking bush. The stem was bumpy with several leaf scars and Victor imagined it would make a perfect spine for his new creation. He snapped off about three inches and placed the twig into the inside pocket of his windbreaker. The pods hanging on the trees were the size of ping-pong balls and their polished coating reflected the sunlight. He plucked one from a low-hanging branch and dropped it into his pocket as well. He had a skull and a spine. For the arm and leg bones, he meticulously chose a few sticks from the piles of brushwood that lined the banks of the winding trail, adding them to his collection.

         He checked his cell phone; it was nearing six o’clock. He headed for home. On his way, he used a pocketknife to carve an arrow into tree trunks as he passed them, leaving behind a trail so that he could be sure to find his way back to the newly discovered land when he was ready to return and explore further.           

         At home in his bedroom, Victor emptied his pocket on his writing desk. He took off his windbreaker, flung it on the bed then knelt to rummage through the closet. He found an empty shoe box and packed it with a small, wooden dowel, a sealed sandwich bag containing twenty pre-cut cubes of blue modeling clay, a pocketknife, and the elements he gathered for the skeleton. Then he slid the box under his bed.

         He washed his hands, ambled to the kitchen and washed his hands again. Yovanna was preparing supper. As Victor scanned the food on the table, a familiar and unwanted feeling of frustration welled up inside of him. Next to the platter of hamburgers was a bowl of potato salad and next to that, a bowl of salad greens. “Tonight’s vegetable should have been corn,” he mumbled, not loud enough for Yovanna to understand what he was saying. “Salad greens yesterday, corn today, and carrots tomorrow.” He raked his fingers through his hair, outwardly showing his agitation, and he sighed. He sat down, closed his eyes and began to count quietly.

         Yovanna saw the not-so-subtle shift in Victor’s mood—he was mumbling to himself, trying desperately to hide his frustration—another symptom of his OCD. She did not get to the store, and she immediately apologized for this interruption to their routine. Unfortunately, her apology triggered more unwelcome feelings of anger in Victor, but not anger towards his sister, he was angry at himself for being so unreasonable. 

        At ten thirty, Victor trudged sleepily to his bedroom. He reached under the bed to check the contents of the shoe box then crawled into bed reassuring himself that he was well-prepared for tomorrow’s task. Three minutes later, he threw back the covers and leaned over the side of the bed to recheck the contents of the box. After settling down for sleep once again, he grabbed his phone from the bedside table and tuned into his favorite story podcast. Eventually he fell asleep.    

         The next morning at breakfast, the siblings sat around the kitchen table and shared a pan of baked oatmeal while discussing their schedules. For the past few days, the school had been closed due to a plumbing issue and Walter was excited to spend the day at his friend, Jeremy’s house. They would most likely play video games the whole day. Yovanna’s publisher would be coming to the house in a couple hours and Victor would be working on his latest design.

         Still in his white T-shirt and pin-striped pajama pants, Victor shuffled to his bedroom, got dressed and straightened the blankets on his bed. He knelt on one knee and slid the shoebox from its dwelling place. After one last, but thorough inspection of its contents, he stuffed the package into an empty backpack. Then he went to the kitchen to toss in a snack, slung the pack over his  shoulder, and headed to his workspace by the stream. 

         A single patch of moss-covered ground under a willow tree made a fine cushion under his buttocks, so he sat, splaying his legs in front of his body. He brushed away pebbles and shriveled leaves that littered the ground between his legs andeHe slipped the backpack off his shoulder. After taking out the box, he removed the lid and placed it upside-down on the dirt floor in front of him to use as a snack tray, he ate a pack of peanut butter crackers and a banana. Afterwards, he dumped the crumbs, and the tray became his worktable. He regretted not bringing a bottle of water, a juice box, anything.

         From the open shoe box, he withdrew the baggie of clay and proceeded to squash eight of the cubes between his palms. He took out the solid, wooden dowel and used it to smooth out and flatten each patty. He withdrew the three-inch, bumpy stick and wrapped it in one of the clay pancakes then added six more cubes of clay to sculpt a body around it. The finished product looked like a giant blue peanut, and he laughed to himself. After laying the torso on the empty backpack beside him, he sliced two of the blue spheres in half with the knife then wrapped four of the shorter sticks. He tried his best to make them look like arms that were bent at the elbows and he believed he had achieved that goal. By pinching the clay at the tips of the lower arms and scoring the flattened tabs with his fingernail to create the illusion of fingers, he was able to form decent-looking hands. He covered the two longer sticks in more clay so they would be thicker them the arms and added a half cube to one end of each leg for shoes. He used his thumbs to meld the limbs to the torso. He laid the headless character on the inverted box top.  

         Victor’s mind began to wander, it was hard to concentrate on the task at hand when there were so many other things that needed his attention. He was determined to finish what he started though, and he blinked a few times, bringing himself back to the present.

         He grabbed the peculiar-looking seed, wrapped it in the last flattened slab of clay, fashioned a nose, dimpled the spots where the eyes should be, and affixed it to the torso with a bit more clay. It was complete. He wasn’t sure why he never gave any of his models a mouth, although he was fairly certain his doctor would have a theory. In any event, it became his signature. The models were proof that he could finish what he started. He was proud of them and he wondered if his efforts would be recognized by anyone else. 

         Victor carefully placed his masterpiece in the now empty shoe box. He replaced the lid and tucked the parcel into his backpack along with the wooden dowel, the sandwich bag that held the unused putty and the crumpled wrappings from the crackers, leaving the banana peel for the hungry critters that inhabited the area. He brushed himself off, and trekked home.

         As he stood by his bed, peering down at the opened box, he grinned. He bent and lifted the figure, then cleared his throat. Within seconds the doll began to tremble in his grasp. Instinctively he opened his hand and the figure fell onto the carpet with a thud. “Whoa,” he exclaimed. Its head detached and rolled under the bed and its arms and legs flailed as it struggled to a standing position.  

        Victor stared at the eight-inch statue but felt a sense of pity rather than fear or surprise. He bent on one knee and retrieved the head. Grasping the form firmly, careful not to squeeze too tightly, he reattached the head to the body.  

         When he stood, he took two steps backward and accidentally put his heel down on top of a paper clip and he yelped. The animated figure turned its bulbous head toward him, its torso following, and it stood there, stock still.

         “Did it just react to my cry?” Victor was getting anxious, mumbling again. Wondering if it was responding to his voice, he began to hum. The miniature effigy kicked out one of its legs and started to amble clumsily across the carpet towards him. An image of Frankenstein popped into Victor’s mind. He stopped humming and the figure froze in its tracks.

         Suddenly, Walter burst into the bedroom and jumped on the bed. He noticed the new figure and immediately snatched it up with both hands.

         “Careful,” Victor yelled.

         But Walter was not expecting the figure to be so pliable, it made him think of the Stretch Armstrong in Yovanna’s room and when he bent it backward, something snapped.  

         Victor reached out and ripped the figure out of Walter’s hands. His little brother looked afraid and shocked, his eyes glistening with tears. He began to apologize over and over again. And as Victor stared at the boy, his cheeks becoming blotchy with stifled emotion, he couldn’t stop himself from giving the distraught boy a hug. With that unspoken gesture of forgiveness, Walter crept out of the room.

         When Victor was finally alone, he began to re-shape the flexible clay and the broken spine became evident. He set the figure on the floor, stepped back and commanded it to walk. Nothing, the form didn’t even wobble. He tried humming the same tune he hummed earlier. Nothing, stiff as a statue. “Broke its back and died,” he exclaimed.

         The following weekend, Victor tramped through the woods, en route to the mysterious arch that staged the entrance to the enchanted territory. An empty backpack flapped against his jacket as he stumbled over the uneven terrain. This time he was equipped for the plethora of fragments he would need to muster for a small army. He looked at his cell phone, he’d been hiking for forty minutes, much longer than he remembered it taking. But the trees with the arrows carved into their bark continued to emerge as he pressed on. He paused and combed his dark tresses with his fingers and spun slowly while he scanned the forest. For as far as he could see, familiar oak, dogwood and ash trees crowded the landscape. He wondered if he was walking in circles even though he was moving in the direction shown by the arrows. It was a long and disappointing day, a day that Victor would experience over and over again, never to find that mystical forest.